The Brownies
by Jadiona
Summary: Stefan made brownies every Sunday with practically religious purpose, but when they start going missing he plans a way to catch the culprit only to discover someone he never expected at the root of it.


**Originally Entered In: **Crime Crusaders Contest

**Beta:** Monica03

**Summary: **Stefan made brownies every Sunday with practically religious purpose, but when they start going missing he plans a way to catch the culprit only to discover someone he never expected at the root of it.

**Pairing: **Stefan/Vladimir

**Disclaimer: **All things Twilight belong solely to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement is intended.

**The Brownies**

Stefan made a batch of brownies every Sunday, setting them to rest on the windowsill for at least an hour before cutting himself a slice to eat. But on the third Sunday, one summer, someone stole his batch of brownies.

At first, he assumed they fell off the window and into his garden – okay, it was really more of a yard full of dead stuff... He couldn't grow a thing to save his life, but he liked to pretend.

But after a thorough examination outside, neither finding the pan nor the brownies, he'd determined they had to have been stolen.

In his younger years, he'd have knocked on every door nearby until he found the blasted culprit – likely one of the teenage hooligans that lived a few blocks away.

He wasn't that man any more, hadn't been in several years.

The truth was, he wasn't all that old, not by traditional standards, anyway – barely in his forties. But his scarred body often made it difficult for him to do simple things even on the best of days, and after hunting through his yard and then half of his house in hopes that he simply misplaced his brownies, it was no longer his best day.

Stefan had joined the Serviciul Român de Informații, or the SRI, when he'd only been twenty, and had served faithfully for more than eighteen years, from the early eighties until the late nineties. That was when his sexuality had gotten out.

He'd barely survived the beating that had happened. And though the SRI hadn't been officially involved, he knew they'd been responsible. After all, he'd been released from his contract not too long after the beating.

As soon as he'd been capable, he'd left, moving from Romania to England – specifically settling in the small community of Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight.

After that, he'd been there for the last five years, living happily by himself in the small town. For the most part, he was left alone, though there was the occasional knock from a neighbour or someone else in the community, usually someone looking for a donation.

All of his family was still back in the homeland of Romania, as were his friends and one-time lover. He hadn't seen Aro Fries in the five years since he'd moved from Romania to England. In all honesty, he didn't really miss him. He supposed that sounded bad, but the truth was he strongly suspected Aro was the reason he'd been discovered in the first place – besides, it wasn't like they had some sort of lasting relationship.

It hadn't been his original plan: spending his life alone while making a minimal income by working on computers. Originally, he'd expected to retire from the SRI and then move into the private sector doing much of the same work he'd been doing as a field agent. Honestly, though he understood the workings of computers, they weren't something he enjoyed. Instead, he preferred the days of chasing down criminals and finding bad guys. And he missed the days of swanky tech, fancy suits, batmobiles, and the likes.

But he was happy as a hermit... at least for the most part. If he missed the days of being in a relationship, of having love and companionship, and the days of sex – well, he didn't let it show. Frankly, he couldn't. There was no room in his life for letting himself trust anyone any more. He simply didn't have it in him.

His brownies were one of the few luxuries that he allowed himself. Which was why he was more than a little pissed that his brownies had been stolen.

Life had to go on though, and so he went back to his normal daily life, putting it aside for the entire week. It was only when the next Sunday rolled around that he started letting it plague him. So when he made his traditional Sunday brownies, he let them cool on his kitchen counter rather than on the windowsill like he usually did.

With his brownies untouched, he went back to his normal routine, cutting himself a slice after they cooled. For the next three weeks, he followed the same process, only going back to setting them on the windowsill after a solid month had passed.

When he left them on the windowsill, they once again disappeared without a trace. Another thorough search provided him with no evidence as to what happened to his brownies.

So the next Sunday he changed his brownie recipe, going from traditional fudgy brownies to cream cheese centres – for some reason the cream cheese centre looked almost bat shaped, though it hadn't been his intent. He hoped that by changing the recipe it would detract the thief. Sadly, it didn't work.

And losing yet another pan and the brownies only served to piss him off all the more. True, he was a wasteful eater when it came to his brownies. But _they were his_.

So, he started to get creative. He made a new type every week; starting with peanut butter blondies and moving onto raspberry filled, caramel filled, mint, brookies, and so on. Each of them was stolen. Until finally, almost three months after it started, he made lemon curd brownies and was rewarded for his efforts.

As he went about his normal business, he heard a loud _"Ew"_ from outside his kitchen window.

He raced – okay, it was more of a jogging hobble – outside to catch the little hooligan who'd been stealing his brownies.

He pulled up short when he didn't find some young nobody, but instead found an adult. A man with white-blond hair and bright blue eyes. A man, who – in spite of the fact that it had been almost thirty years since the last time he'd seen him – he'd recognize anywhere.

"Vladimir Dumitru?" The name was out of his mouth before he even had time to fully consult himself over it.

The man, who still had Stefan's brownie pan in his hands, stared at him, half-frozen with eyes wide open. If he hadn't been stealing his brownies, Vladimir would look downright hilarious – like the type of old-time animated cartoons with over-exaggerated features and everything. Instead, to Stefan, he just looked extremely guilty.

Okay, childhood friend and first crush or not, Stefan was still more than a little pissed over the fact that so many of his hard made brownies had been stolen by the man in front of him.

"Do I know you?" Vladimir asked.

Stefan crossed his arms over his chest. Yes, Vladimir did know him, but if he couldn't remember him... Well, that wasn't Stefan's problem.

"You're the brat that's been stealing my brownies."

If he remembered right, Vladimir had moved with his parents to London when they'd only been thirteen. Even with that knowledge, the chances of seeing him here, in his small town... had to border on astronomical. The years as a member of the SRI kicked in, and Stefan started to get suspicious.

He may have a broken body, but if they sen Vladimr after him for nefarious purposes, he'd be the one left standing.

Then again, he might be getting ahead of himself as Vladimir didn't even seem to recognize him – and if he'd been sent by the SRI, he definitely would.

"Well, you keep leaving them out where they're so easily reachable." He nodded toward the windowsill – which was more than seven feet off the ground. " You obviously wanted them to be taken."

Stefan narrowed his eyes. "If you... you evil fiend, weren't so bloody gargantuan, you wouldn't be able to reach them either."

It was true, his house was built up off the ground because of how close it was to the ocean. Therefore, it wasn't exactly an easy feat for an average person to reach. Then again, the man in front of him, Vladimir, hadn't been average even when they'd been in Gymnasium together. Vladimir was almost six foot tall, even back then, and now he was over that.

"Oh, _come on_. I'm not that tall." The slightly sarcastic, slightly amused, edge in his voice gave everything away.

"You do remember me!" Stefan half-shouted, half-snarled. He wasn't amused.

"I'll admit when I first heard from Siobhan Gillie that there was another Romanian in this small town – that his name was Stefan – I was sure it wouldn't be you. After all, it's far from an uncommon name."

Siobhan Gillie was the owner of the local grocery store and a known busybody, often meddling in things she had no business meddling in. And if Vladimir's story was to be believed – something Stefan had no reason not to given how she normally was – then she'd done it yet again. What was more annoying was the fact that she hadn't given him the same courtesy.

"Annoying sodding woman," Stefan grumbled under his breath.

"What was that?" Vladimir grinned.

"And just what is the meaning of stealing my damn brownies rather than ringing my doorbell?" Stefan suspected he knew why, but he didn't find it the least bit funny.

"Well, I thought about saying 'hi.' I really did. Then I smelled the brownies. They were more tempting."

Thirty years ago, Stefan had said something similar. Though it hadn't been about brownies. It had been about spending time with the cool kid, Boris, over spending it with Vladimir. Which meant it was exactly what Stefan had suspected.

"Aren't we past childhood sullenness?"

Vladimir arched his eyebrow at him. "I don't know. Are we?"

Stefan couldn't cross his arms over his chest again as they were already in that position. "You're the one who was stealing my brownies!"

"You kept leaving them where I could get to them!"

"Because I knew eventually you would trip up!" Actually, he had no idea it was Vladimir, but he had known _the thief_ would eventually make a mistake. The fact that the thief was someone he'd known as a child was still more than a little rankling, but he was quickly getting used to it. "I should call the police on you."

"Over stolen brownies, when you usually only eat one square of what you bake? Honestly, they should arrest _you_ for all that you waste."

"I baked them. It's my right to do what I want with them!" he exclaimed, immediately defensive.

Okay, so he knew he was a wasteful eater, but his brownies were always so rich... And besides, it was his one weekly luxury. What right did Vladimir have to judge him for his choices?

"Besides, you didn't just steal my brownies. You stole my bloody pans too, you sodding idiot." He barely resisted the urge to switch into his own native tongue and swear at the man properly.

"When did you become so damn British?" Vladimir demanded.

Stefan prided himself on his ability to fit in with the locals, something he'd actually been trained on when he'd still been in the SRI, but he knew an insult when he heard one.

"Why you... you... _Futu-i poponarul mă-sii_!" There simply wasn't a way to say it with the same gusto in English like there was in their native tongue.

"HA! So are you!" Vladimir replied with mirth.

Stefan didn't respond, instead stepping forward and yanking his pan of brownies from Vladimir's hands before turning and marching back into his house, slamming the door behind him.

It wasn't until he made it back to his desk that he relaxed slightly, glaring towards the front when his doorbell rang a couple of minutes later.

"Screw him," he muttered, going to work on the computer with the outdated Windows ME software. Stefan wanted to change it to the current system, XP, but the person who was paying him to fix the computer had been flat against the idea.

And, okay, part of Stefan got it, he too was firmly stuck in the past with more than one thing.

It was why he'd moved into the house he had, practically outside the limits of the town. It was why he trusted no one, why he didn't have any friends – even though he'd lived in Yarmouth for five years – and why he was ultimately so suspicious of someone he hadn't seen in _decades_ suddenly showing back up in his life.

By the time that week had gone by, Stefan had made another batch of brownies – this time lime curd – and once again placed them on his windowsill.

Unlike he had before, though, this time, he sat in one of the chairs at his kitchen table and watched the window like a hawk.

So when two hands reached in to take his brownies, he shouted, "AHA!"

The hands shot back out of the window without his pan so fast that it was downright hilarious. Stefan found himself laughing.

"_Du-te dracu_!" a man, Stefan assumed it was Vladimir, shouted from outside.

The swear 'go to hell' only served to make Stefan laugh harder.

Then he heard footsteps running off.

Over the course of the next several Sundays, the cat and mouse style game over his brownies continued with no contact aside from rude words – many in their native tongue – and a number of laughs, varying from caustic to genuine. In fact, it was nearing winter when the game finally came to a head.

Because one Sunday, Vladimir, with his hands creeping into Stefan's window to try and steal his brownies, didn't show.

At first, Stefan tried not to let it bother him, but when Vladimir didn't show again on the next Sunday, Stefan became deeply concerned, and he headed into town to find his thieving friend.

The only problem was, he knew nothing about Vladimir other than his name. He tracked down miss busybody instead, going to her house because her little grocery store was closed on Sundays.

Even though he'd never been to her house before, it was relatively easy to find – it shared lot space with the little grocery store.

Once she opened the door to him, he demanded, "Where is Vladimir?"

Siobhan blinked. He knew she was probably in shock as he pretty much never came into town aside from when he got groceries or dropped off a computer after repairing it. Unfortunately for her, he wasn't in the mood to deal with her shock.

"Today. Siobhan."

"He... he was taken to St. Mary's in Newport. He fell off a roof and broke his leg. He does repair work, you know. I don't think he's back yet."

He didn't bother to thank her, just turned and headed back to his vehicle.

The truth was, he didn't know why he cared as much as he did, but he'd just grown so used to his brownie thief over the last few months.

And perhaps his heart still remembered crushing on him back when they were in school...

He wasn't about to admit it.

But once he got in his car, he raced toward his once friend with a mix of dread and hope in his heart, not a hundred percent sure what he wanted the outcome to be when he got to him.


End file.
